Introduction

After more than 70 trips to Disney Parks (primarily Walt Disney World, but also Disneyland) and on Disney Cruise Line, I receive a lot of questions from family and friends interested in my thoughts on planning and taking a Disney vacation. Contained on this site are my standard responses and my best tips and tricks for when anyone asks for help in planning a Disney vacation. There’s a lot to consider and SOOOO many options that it can be completely overwhelming. Disney attempts to make things easier, of course, by eliminating options or by making options seem so simple that it’s actually more complex.

In addition, there are many other available guidebooks and manuals on trying to plan a trip. What I’ve found, though, is that these books are filled with more detail than most people need when they’re first planning a Disney vacation – and while every bit of information is in them, they’re not always manageable (but you’ll see that I’ll point you to many other resources all over the place).

Thus, I’ve tried to break down the information into manageable chunks, in the order that you’d have to think about them. So the first part of this guide is intended for pre-trip planning and the second part is for what you have available once you arrive. As a note to my Disneyland visitors (or those who find this site from the Internet looking for generic Disney information), this site IS geared to Walt Disney World. Park-specific information (attraction information, for example) isn’t going to apply to your trip – but all of the planning information will still help. An additional section covers Disney Cruises.

Ready? OK, here we go:

Up top, you’ll find topics listed in the order in which I think you’ll find them most useful (especially in the Pre-Planning section). Simply click a link to read about the first topic.